Watergate scandal: In Orlando, Florida, US President Richard Nixon tells 400 Associated Press managing editors “People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I am not a crook.“

Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994) was the 37th President of the United States from 1969 to 1974, having formerly been the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961. A member of the Republican Party, he was the only President to resign the office as well as the only person to be elected twice to both the Presidency and the Vice Presidency.

2004 – The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics announces the discovery of the universe’s largest known diamond, white dwarf star BPM 37093. Astronomers named this star “Lucy” after The Beatles’ song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”.

BPM 37093 is a variable white dwarf star of the DAV, or ZZ Ceti, type, with a hydrogen atmosphere and an unusually high mass of approximately 1.1 times the Sun’s. It is about 50 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Centaurus, and vibrates; these pulsations cause its luminosity to vary.[1][4] Like other white dwarfs, BPM 37093 is thought to be composed primarily of carbon and oxygen, which are created by thermonuclear fusion of helium nuclei in the triple-alpha process.

24 Hours in Cyberspace (February 8, 1996) was “the largest one-day online event” up to that date, headed by photographer Rick Smolan. “The project brought together the world’s top photographers, editors, programmers, and interactive designers to create a digital time capsule of online life.”

24 Hours in Cyberspace was an online project which took place on the then-active website, cyber24.com (and is still online at a mirror website maintained by Georgia Tech). At the time, it was billed as the “largest collaborative Internet event ever”, involving thousands of photographers from all over the world, including 150 of the world’s top photojournalists. In addition, then Vice President Al Gore contributed the introductory essay to the Earthwatch section of the website. In this essay, he discusses the impact of the Internet on the environment, education, and increased communication between people.

The goal was not to show pictures of websites and computer monitors, but rather images of people whose lives were affected by the use of the growing Internet. Photographs were sent digitally to editors working real-time to choose the best pictures to put on the project’s website. The website received more than 4 million hits in the 24 hours that the project was active.

1996 – The massive Internet collaboration “24 Hours in Cyberspace” takes place.
24 Hours in Cyberspace (February 8, 1996) was “the largest one-day online event” up to that date, headed by photographer Rick Smolan.[1] “The project brought together the world’s top photographers, editors, programmers, and interactive designers to create a digital time capsule of online life.”
24 Hours in Cyberspace was an online project which took place on the then-active website, cyber24.com (and is still online at a mirror website maintained by Georgia Tech). At the time, it was billed as the “largest collaborative Internet event ever”, involving thousands of photographers from all over the world, including 150 of the world’s top photojournalists. In addition, then Vice President Al Gore contributed the introductory essay to the Earthwatch section of the website. In this essay, he discusses the impact of the Internet on the environment, education, and increased communication between people.
The goal was not to show pictures of websites and computer monitors, but rather images of people whose lives were affected by the use of the growing Internet. Photographs were sent digitally to editors working real-time to choose the best pictures to put on the project’s website. The website received more than 4 million hits in the 24 hours that the project was active.

On this day last year, a cast of the sculpture L’Homme qui marche I by Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacomettisells for £65 million (US$103.7 million), setting the record for most expensive sculpture sold at a public auction.

L’Homme qui marche I (The Walking Man I, lit. The Man who Walks I) is the name of any one of the cast bronze sculptures that comprise six numbered editions plus four artist proofs created by Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti in 1961.

The bronze sculpture depicts a lone man in mid-stride with his arms hanging at his side. The piece is described as “both a humble image of an ordinary man, and a potent symbol of humanity”. Giacometti is said to have viewed “the natural equilibrium of the stride” as a symbol of “man’s own life force”

Opportunity, MER-B (Mars Exploration Rover – B), is a robotic rover on the planet Mars, active since 2004. It is one of two rovers of NASA’s ongoing Mars Exploration Rover Mission. Launched from Earth in 2003, it landed on planet Mars at Meridiani Planum on January 25, 2004 05:05 Ground UTC (about 13:15 local time), three weeks after its twin Spirit (MER-A) touched down on the other side of the planet.

Opportunity has continued to function effectively over twenty times longer than its planned 90-sol mission, aided by solar cell cleaning events, and it continues to perform extensive geological analysis of Martian rocks and planetary surface features.

Mission highlights include completion of the 90-sol (90 Martian days) mission, discovery of the first meteorite on another planet, Heat Shield Rock (Meridiani Planum), and over two years studying Victoria crater. The rover narrowly survived dust-storms in 2007, and is now making its way to Endeavour crater.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover project for NASA’s Office of Space Science, Washington.

In an interview with Melody Maker, musician David Bowie announces that he is gay. Actually he is bisexual, and his wife Angela did catch him in bed with Mick Jagger. (1972)

The D-man is an English rock musician and singer who has also worked as an actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for five decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s, and is known for his distinctive voice and the intellectual depth of his work.

On Jan 18th, 1998, an advertisement in Norway’s primary daily newspaper Verdens Gang today depicted a used tampon made to resemble the Japanese flag, with the caption “We wish the female participants luck in Nagano” (the site of the 1998 Winter Olympics). The Japanese Embassy in Oslo has filed a protest.

New York mobsters Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno and Carmine “Junior” Persico sentenced to 100 years of prison for racketeering, along with six others. All were members of the Mafia “board of directors” – Jan 13 1987